Star of Morning
by PaleAndromache
Summary: Venus is the first star of evening and the last star of morning. When Minako first awakens as Sailor Venus she is 12 years old... A series of one-shots in an AU where the Dark Kingdom doesn't try for world domination and Venus fights alone while trying to find her sleeping sisters. V/K with S/S, U/M, and M/H
1. Venus Rising

In an AU where the other girls don't waken Venus continues the fight alone. This is series of connected one-shots in a world where the dark kingdom doesn't attack and the shittenou are out living regular lives. Expect mostly V/K but with side doses of all the other Senshi/Shittenou, U/M, and H/M.

I own nothing.

* * *

When Minako first awakens as Sailor Venus she is 12 years old and suddenly dealing with the memories of a _very not_ 12 year old warrior goddess.

Did Selene ever consider the ramifications of this grand plan of hers?

Some of these memories may help make her into a better soldier, may help her to survive battles, but others (a lot of others to be honest) make her blush and squirm and understand jokes adults thought went over her pretty, blonde head.

Seriously though, how had she and Kunzite never been caught? It should have been statistically impossible.

But more than anything else Minako feels terribly alone.

Despite the fact that suddenly admirers seem to be pressing in from all sides. Artemis says it was the same when she was Venus, and while she enjoys it at first the attention quickly becomes bothersome.

Thank the goddess for Artemis. Her constant companion in her previous life and this one was always there to help her sluice through memories, figure out new attacks, and nag her into perfection (… well, close enough to it.) But for all of this there was still a hole in her heart that longed for her sisters-in-arms and her sweet charge.

And another, with hair light starlight and eyes like steel, though she never mentions him to her feline guardian.

As the leader of the senshi it was understandable she would be the first to awaken, but then time passed. One week, six months, three years, time slipped by with no sign of any of them.

Artemis was stumped. Minako was disheartened. There seemed to be no actual enemy to fight, just random youma created from negative energy and looking for more.

(So many coffee shops… which was beginning to get weird. And one very, very uncomfortable fight at a hot spring which she and Artemis swore to never discuss again.)

In a desperate bid to find her sisters she launched her career as a popstar. She had always wanted to be one, and clearly drawing media attention in her senshi persona wasn't helping with the search.

Maybe, like her, they had awoken alone? Maybe if they saw her, heard her they would come to her?

She should not have been surprised when it did not work. She is surprised when it leads her to Neptune and Uranus.

Saying her relationship with them had a rough start is a gross understatement.

Over time they grow to be allies (friends?) along with the sometimes present, always there Pluto. But while they were senshi, they were not the ones she sought.

(Maroon eyes watch her with compassion, "I'm sorry Minako-san, I don't know where they are. Until they awaken they are shielded from my sight.")

And life continues: three more months, two more years, two platinum albums, and finding Saturn.

(Another messy episode that all were happy to put firmly behind them.)

Somehow she has managed to find and gather all the sentinel senshi of the outer solar system but can't seem to find any sort of lead on the inner guardians or their princess.

Some days even Artemis can't convince her she's not a failure.

Then one day she catches a flash of silver hair at her club in London. She knows it's him; she can feel it in the way the red string on her finger tightens. She also knows that he will have searched for Endymion.

(And where the Earth Prince goes the Moon Princess follows.)

So, at 19 Aino Minako, Venus reborn, presses forward through the crowd to her first lead on Serenity in this lifetime. It is time to reacquaint herself with her greatest weakness.

(Her greatest love.)

* * *

Thoughts are always welcome.

PA


	2. Artemis Chasma

So the first few chapters will probably be more like intros to some of the main players, just to give better background into this world. I'm trying to set up not just stories for them moving forward, but also ones about them looking back. I figured since they're more set up than anything else I would post them quickly so I can get on to sections with actually character interaction and dialogue...

Thank you for the reviews, it always good to hear feedback!

I own nothing.

* * *

There are days when Artemis curses fate, but never so fiercely as the days when Minako says or does something that spoke of experiences beyond her years. Experiences he still feels guilty for reawakening.

She is 13 when the police officer dies. Artemis will quickly forget the woman's name over the course of time, but he will never forget the look in Minako's eyes- the staggering grief shuttered away quickly behind resignation. Since when is she old enough to wear such a face?

"It is such a waste," she sighs as they sit together on her bed. "They burn so bright and short. Surely this is why we were forbidden from Earth."

Some days she is all Venus, others she is all Minako, but more and more they are blurring together, melding into one. The guilt becomes worse.

He longs for Luna, but she is nowhere to be found.

They press on, fight on, and live on; and always, always search on.

Too many youmas, too many boys, to many fights (in battlefields and alleyways, with her parents and between her parents) and Artemis finds himself questioning the wisdom of Selene's plan.

"Some love burns long and low like coals, some flickers and sputters like candles," Minako says to him, matter of fact as her parents shout at each other in the room below them. She is 14 and her face is a mask of weariness.

"Don't be such an optimist," he replies from the windowsill.

Her responding smile is wry and sharp, but it softens as she adds, "Some love shines like the stars: bright, eternal, and true."

It gets harder and harder to tell where Minako ends and Venus begins.

He thinks he misses Luna the most when his charge is melancholy. She always knew the right thing to say to the senshi on the moon, surely she would know now. And if she did not she would at least know what to say to him, to cheer him from his own failure as a guardian.

There is still no trace of his sweet Luna, or of Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter. And nothing of Serenity.

Would that Mars were here to knock Venus out of her periods of battle fatigue and ennui. He can remember them being thick as thieves and sometimes it is still jarring to see the golden haired senshi fight by herself. Senshi were never meant to be alone he thinks.

This is why, despite the initial _difficulties,_ he is happy when they find Neptune and Uranus. Minako is 16, exhausted from fighting alone, and has seen more in the last 4 years than many will in their lifetime. (They will never, ever speak of the youma in the hot-springs to anyone. It was really the most absurd situation he has ever heard of, let alone seen.) Though they are not teammates per say, they are allies, and soon after that friends and mentors.

Even if Minako has been fighting for longer around them she seems lighter, younger, and less burdened. The white guardian relishes these times and basks in the easy happiness of his charge when she it not weighed down with memory and duty. He wonders what it would be like if she were not alone and searching.

Uranus, Tenou Haruka as she is called now, also proves to be invaluable in keeping Minako's would be suitors in line. Artemis had not thought it possible but with stardom their numbers increased.

Meanwhile Neptune, now called Kaioh Michiru, thinks the entire thing to be hysterically funny and delights in aggravating the situation by egging on the media.

Perhaps in some other life, in some other world Minako would have adored it all. But he knows she is too busy searching for the people who really matter than to pay these amorous boys any mind. Pluto wanders in and out of their lives at her leisure and there is that whole _mess_ with Saturn, which eventually gets resolved, but still nothing of the inner senshi or Serenity.

So they search and look and scour and at this point Artemis would welcome Endymion with open arms if it meant bringing Venus some small amount of hope.

But at 18, with the outer senshi around her as the only result of her 6 years of fruitless searching for the inners and Serenity, he's not sure how much hope she has left.

* * *

As always I would love your thoughts.

PA


	3. The Leonids

Thanks for the feedback! I have review responses at the end of the chapter for the reviews that needed them.

* * *

Kadar is born under a fall of stars. It is mid-November and the Leonid Meteor Show is especially spectacular that year, his grandmother will tell him later, like the heavens are weeping light. And as summer dies and winter begins to stir the stars fell out of the firmament and into his hair.

When he is young he is teased relentlessly about the fair strands, such a pale shade of blonde it is truly more silver than anything else. His father says his schoolmates tease because he is so far ahead of them in classes and his mother says it is because he is so handsome and tall.

But it is his grandmother who tells him they are jealous because he is clearly blessed by Allah.

"After all," she says slipping him a sweet, "did not the hair of the Jewish prophet Moses turn white when he entered the presence of the Almighty?"

(Kadar never tells her that is not God but a goddess who blessed him, and though she adored touching his hair her blessing had little to do with the pale strands.)

He loves his family deeply and takes the lessons they teach him to heart. Help others, work hard, love the world, but amongst these wisdoms the teachings from another life trickle through like water in a sieve.

Keep your oaths, protect your people, and guard your Prince.

It is not an epiphany; it is not Saul riding to persecute Christians and being struck from his horse, only to be called Christ himself. There is no distinct moment where he is changed from Kadar to Kunzite. Instead there is a slow slide into the man he once was, who, strangely enough, is also the man he will be.

The philosophical implications boggle his young mind.

But he is 12 and still being teased for his hair, so he reins in his temper and thinks on more these important things than the hair dye his brother bought him for his birthday.

(It is red, which he is sure will result in even worse names than the unoriginal "Old Man" he has been called since they learned the term in English.)

It matters little; his marks are so excellent he is sent off to a prestigious boarding school in Abu Dahbi where he continues to both learn and remember. Control and discipline are deeply rooted centers in Kunzite's life so Kadar sets himself out to make them the same in his.

He remembers his prince and his men; he remembers his goddess and his oaths. He remembers falling under the witch's spell and betraying all of them.

Years pass and he continues to excel in all disciplines he pursues, except that he finds he has no close friends and is no closer to finding his goddess or his prince. The former causes his mother to worry, the latter remains secreted away, deep in his heart. Otherwise, despite this major failing in the only thing that _really_ matters to him, his new life is a complete success.

His teachers remark on his studiousness and maturity, and he finds he is the most studious at keeping his thoughts from the golden haired princess who he need but think on to send his blood southward.

(There was one very awkward literature class where they are reading a Greek play and discussing Aphrodite and he knows were any of the shittenou or, gods forbid, Venus herself to learn of it he would never live it down.)

And he sometimes wonders if he is merely playacting and biding time until his real life begins.

It is difficult to tell if he should be holding onto Kadar or embracing Kunzite.

But he hasn't found his prince or any of his men, and he suspects if he was reborn in his province of Terra then would be as well. So he may as well continue to build a life he can lead as whomever he is. A life he can use to help his prince and to help Venus, even if she would never allow him to help her.

He is beginning to think it does not matter who he is so long as he is someone at all.

His parents are terribly proud of his degrees from prestigious foreign schools, and high paying job with an international investment firm.

Making money from investing other people's money is a less concrete livelihood then Kunzite would have liked (Jadeite would have _absolutely_ _loved_ it) but its suites Kadar just fine. He travels the world- New York, London, Tokyo- his brother and sisters often ask for gifts and souvenirs he is all to happy to bring home to them.

There is some guilt regarding his family, he does not always feel he is able to give them as much as he should for his heart lies elsewhere. But he loves them as much as he is able and gives as much of himself as he can. So Kadar satisfies his guilt by feeling he can do no better for them at this time. Not when his gaze is ever turned outward and forward.

He searches and he prepares, but he's 26 and there has been no sign of any denizen of the Golden Age of Earth or the Silver Millennium. Even though he knows he will find them (he can feel it somewhere deep inside himself) it doesn't stop the mounting anxiety that he's missed them or failed them or worst of all, that he has been reborn alone as a punishment for his sins, doomed to spend this life longing and searching for people who will never arrive.

("Have faith Habibi," his grandmother tells him when he visits. She has a way of recognizing his worry, even if she does not understand the cause. "We are all moving on the paths laid out for us, you will get to where you are meant to be when you are meant to be there. Worrying will not speed the world up, it will only line your brow." She gives him a smile, hands him a sweet, and Kadar takes a moment to appreciate that somethings do not change despite the passage of time.)

But Kadar finds he is a soul better at giving advice than taking it.

* * *

Harmonic Wisp- you have found the bane of my English teachers, I tend to slip into past tense and always end up in passive voice. I've gone back to try and make things all together in a present-party, but I think taking out some of the parentheses messed it up a bit. But hopefully its better now! Sorry that it jarred you out of the story! I hate it when that happens to me (usually when people list brand names…) and it completely throws you out of the narrative.

Valkyrie Celes- Sorry about the large amount of parentheses, as I said to Harmonic Wasp, I totally get how annoying it is when you're pulled out of a story by something. I've cut down on them, but it's more of a story device than anything else. The portions in them are asides that may not fall into the story exactly or in the timeline of the chapter. I suppose I could have italicized them, but I find large chunks in italics distracting. I hope the changes make it easier to read.

Thoughts are always welcome, I'm toying with who to post next, I feel like I need to let Venus and Kunzite meet soon, before they fall into a depression, but I also want to explain the whole Uranus/Neptune meeting Venus and I desperately want to name a chapter Tombugh Regio after Pluto's heart shaped feature…

PA


	4. 97-77

I had trouble deciding who to post… sorry.

97.77 is the axial tilt of Uranus, which compared to the orientation of the other plants puts its poles where the equator usually is. Effectively it rotates on its side.

I just feel like that at first aside from Michiru and Usagi Haruka really doesn't like anyone, she tolerates them certainly, but like them? I think that takes a while (like until the end of the manga a while...). I tried to capture that.

* * *

Haruka finds the blonde girl talking to Michiru suspicious.

At first the ditzy, little pop-star registered as being no threat at all, but now the soldier of Uranus is forced to reassess her thoughts. Haruka does not like being proven wrong.

She is a pretty thing, all golden blonde hair and sky blue eyes and songs about love and friendship. Delicate and sweet. Standing next to Michiru the picture is stunning, they are both beautiful women, but Aino Minako sets the racecar driver's teeth on edge.

(There is a quality to her beauty that, similar to Michiru's, is almost otherworldly.)

The violinist has told her multiple times that she is being paranoid.

"Mina-chan is a sweetheart. She's only 16 anyway, are you really afraid of a teenager? Oh how the mighty guardians of the outer solar system have fallen…" The teal haired beauty had laughed over the whole affair and continued her friendship and mentorship of the young star.

But to Haruka something about Minako always seemed _off_.

"She looks like a kitten at play, but she's a lioness in the hunt. I don't trust her." Haruka tells her lover. But regardless of the teeth grinding and hair raising Michiru and the girl (and Haruka by extension) still meet on occasion for shows and concerts and benefits.

(There is a sharp glint to those sky blue eyes, it is fleeting and gone as soon as the soldier of the heavens notices it, but it was there.) Aino Minako is no simpering pop princess. Haruka has yet to discover what she is, but until then she refuses to trust the blonde.

As usual Setsuna is no help.

And seriously, Haruka thinks she just makes situations worse with all of her mysteriousness and non-answers. It's blatant suspense building on the part of the soldier of time and it is not until a youma nearly kills everyone at one of their violin concerts that the truth comes to light.

They've just trounced the creature, which had formed out of (of all things) a vending machine, and they hear the sound of gloved clapping and the tinkling of a metal chain.

Suddenly all of the uneasiness makes sense, as does _Mina-chan's_ unearthly beauty.

Venus.

Uranus cannot remember the last time she saw the leader of the senshi, long before the actual destruction of the Moon Kingdom certainly, and now she feels terribly foolish for having missed it.

(The slant of her eyes, the cut of her face, and those stupid songs about romance. But most of all that clever, devious mind hidden behind sweetness and innocence.)

Uranus cannot get over the anger and bitterness now building inside of her.

Venus has one fucking job and if she's here than she's sure as hell not doing it.

The soldier of the heavens reserves the deepest hatred she is capable of for those who abandon their post.

" _World Shaking."_

The attack rips towards the golden senshi, but Venus (like Uranus) is known for her speed and dodges easily.

(Jupiter may have strength and Mercury her genius, but it is Venus's speed and ruthless cunning that earns her her place as the leader. Uranus never forgets that the sweet looking girl-child is one of the most dangerous of the senshi.)

"Well this was hardly the reunion I was imagining." Venus calls out, "But you're hardly the people I was looking for either so when life gives you lemons make a cake."

Neptune actually face palms, and Uranus rolls her eyes. Any small doubt this was not Venus is gone now, there isn't a soul in the galaxy worse with idioms than the goddess of love.

"Why are you here? Where is Serenity?" Haruka is so angry she can scarcely think of what to ask the younger girl.

(How dare she abandon her charge? Break her oaths?)

"I don't know. To either honestly." The blonde's posture deflates and she can see Neptune drop some of her own tension. "I've been looking for the others for 5 years and so far it's just been me." She shrugs her shoulders in nonchalance but Haruka and Michiru can read right through it.

Neptune has only been awake for 3 years, but she spent the first year and a half alone. Uranus knows that time still haunts her. For Venus this must be torture.

The inner senshi never operate alone.

Some of Haruka's anger drains from her.

A moment ago she was facing Venus the warrior, now she seems to be looking only at Minako the girl. She looks unbearably sad and the shorthaired blonde finds herself distinctly uncomfortable with this new situation.

Being angry with her for desertion would have been so much easier.

A glance as Neptune has both of them moving out of their defensive stances. Neither has ever expected to find the other senshi, the outers and inners have always functioned as separate, parallel groups.

But watching as Neptune makes her way over to the soldier of love Uranus feels the world shifting. She doesn't know why Venus is alone and she doesn't know why she and Michiru are even here, but she will continue to protect this planet and these people and serve the moon.

If fate dictates she do that fighting beside Venus so be it, she doesn't have to enjoy it to accept it.

After the revelation of their true selves things become easier between them. Not all at once, but eventually.

Like them Venus has struggled with her identity in this life, balancing it with her past self. Unlike them she still seems off kilter in this balancing act.

(They will always be Uranus and Neptune first and foremost; Haruka and Michiru are facades for the world. They are soldiers at heart in this life and all lives.)

Haruka still finds her grating at times and Michiru takes to mentoring her more, but now that she isn't so completely caught up in her pop-star act in front of them Minako is infinitely easier to be around.

She seems happier than before Uranus notes, certainly in a more sincere manner than her previous bluster. So maybe there is a purpose to all this as Neptune keeps insisting.

( _The inner senshi never operate alone_ , she thinks again.)

Artemis is still a pain in the ass though.

* * *

I have a K/V meet up written but I wasn't sure I wanted to commit to it. So instead you got some Haruka.

I'd love your thoughts!

PA


	5. Tombaugh Regio

There is some forward movement at the end of this, so thats good?

Everyone should thank Harmonic Wisp for reading through this and making sure its coherent.

Here is Pluto, who is super mysterious, and thus difficult to capture. She's quite melancholy isn't she? Being around he others is good for her I think.

* * *

When the Silver Millennium falls it does so not with the clash of swords or the pounding of war drums, but in _silence_.

A swift, smothering, all-consuming silence that takes everything Pluto loves (from a distance, always from a distance) and wipes it away into nothingness.

There is a brief moment when she sees Saturn, her large violet eyes calm and pitying, and then the soldier of death melts away as well.

And Pluto finds herself terribly alone.

So she settles in to watch and wait.

Being outside the flow of time means she both waits for an eternity and for no time at all. It is a dichotomy she is sure no one else would understand, even if she had the luxury of someone to explain it to.

Then Artemis awakens and finds Venus.

She continues to watch as Venus defends the Earth alone. (She can't help but wonder if the golden warrior remembers it was this planet that brought ruin and death to her own? Pluto finds that solitude has turned her thoughts morbid.)

But any old feelings of resentment are clearly gone as she defends the planet and people staunchly, all the while searching for her sister soldiers. The soldier of time watches with no small amount of empathy as the Venusian struggles with her loneliness.

Strangely it is Neptune who awakens next, followed quickly by Uranus. Had she friends to make bets with Pluto is woman enough to admit she would have lost on that count.

She is still unsure regarding the wisdom of her plan, when Pluto decides to make a mortal alias for herself and goes to them as Setsuna.

(Their reunion is exactly what the guardian of time expects from Haruka, but the soldier of Uranus calms eventually.)

Venus, or Minako rather, hovers on the periphery of Haruka and Michiru's lives. She obviously senses something from the older women but can't seem to pinpoint the cause.

Despite Haruka's questions Pluto will not (cannot) expose Venus when the outcome of such a confrontation remains unknown even to her. (There are so many variables now, when did life become so complicated?)

Setsuna watches as the truth is revealed and Venus also endures Uranus's unique brand of welcome.

There is a tentative alliance between the two outer senshi and the golden leader, so Pluto introduces herself into the mix in order to strengthen it.

When Haruka was suspicious of Minako, Pluto had denied her questions due to doctrine and laws older than the earth itself. When Pluto denies Minako's questions it is due to her inability to see past the veil the silver crystal placed over the moon's denizens to protect them.

She is sure even if she could see them as Pluto she should not tell Venus, but the more time she spends on earth the more human she feels. Setsuna is unsure if she could deny the blonde aid in finding her sisters.

Pluto is intimately acquainted with loneliness.

Even now, with Venus, Neptune, and Uranus, she still feels very much alone. It is not their fault, for how could they comprehend the vast expanse and emptiness of eternity?

They find Saturn.

The soldier of ruin threatens to be the destruction of this fragile peace they have forged.

(Violet eyes lock with maroon, calm and silent the senshi of death seems little more than a young girl. Pluto knows better though. She knows this girl remembers beyond time itself, she knows the peace and tranquility about her is a trap for the foolish.)

What Pluto knows ultimately proves to be wrong. In fact, what they all know of Saturn seems to be fear mongering and ignorance. Pluto would like to place the blame on Selene, but she knows they are all at fault.

Tomoe Hotaru joins their eclectic circle with shy smiles and quiet delight, and Setsuna finds herself visiting more often if only to share in the quiet presence of one who understands.

Saturn very kindly never comments on this.

(Nor does the soldier of silence comment on the way Uranus turned from attacking her viciously, to defending her with equal ferocity. Seeing Haruka as a defensive older sibling is something Pluto, Neptune, and Venus laugh over.)

So caught up is she in living life that it is not until the very day of that Setsuna realizes one of the meetings Minako so longs for is fated to take place.

She takes a moment to wonder if Venus is ready, because hoping for a connection to the past is one thing, but wishes have a nasty habit of biting one on the ass when they come true.

(She can't _wait_ to see how Uranus handles this one.)

* * *

Thoughts and comments are appreciated.

PA


	6. Umm al Binni Lake

The Umm al Binni Lake is an almost dry lake in Iraq which is thought to be the impact crater from around 3000-5000 years ago which may have caused cataclysmic disasters in Sumerian Cities and is referenced in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

I meant to write a full meet up. But Kunzite had to go and have all these feelings and it ran away from me.

Once again everyone should thank Harmonic Wisp for reading through the sludge I write and making it make sense.

* * *

If Kadar had even the slightest notion that something was going to _finally_ happen today he would have prepared himself mentally, and probably gone back to his flat to shower before dinner and drinks with his London based co-workers.

Instead he finds himself out at a Pub Quiz Night on a Thursday after two weeks of 'trying to work himself into an early grave' (his mother's words) with people he probably should be nicer to but never seems to find time for.

He has no leads and no ideas on how to continue his search for his brothers and liege and has thrown himself into work with a vengeance. But except for his family he really has no close ties to people in his life as Kadar and feels that more and more there is a chance he will never have the bonds of friendship that Kunzite had either. He finds balancing the two facets of himself is difficult enough already and so he makes no attempts to expand his circle of acquaintances.

(Despite popular belief from Elysium Kunzite is not a glutton for punishment.)

The self-deprecating part of him points out that this is why he never seems to have friends. It sounds annoyingly like Zoicite.

The pub is playing music while they go over their answers one last time. One of his female coworkers has been flirting with him for the past hour during the quiz and Kadar is wearied by the effort of letting her down gently. At least the music is loud enough that he can feign listening to the horrible upbeat pop number about love lost by some young artist he's sure he has never heard of.

There is something about the singer's voice that is terribly familiar though.

He chalks it up to his sisters' poor tastes in music and contemplates the bonus question on the quiz. (The girls have just turned 13 and in Kadar's humble opinion their taste in everything is poor- he is really hoping it's just a stage.)

But the singer's voice sticks with him and a lyric- something tripe about never needing to forgive a man when there are more waiting- sends a bright flash of recognition through him. It draws a memory up from the deep.

(Venus laughs like the tinkling of bells, "Why would I ever have to forgive a man who has wronged me? Don't you know how men are waiting, hoping for my favor?" Her blue eyes are depthless and they glint with mischief, "You only need to forgive those who cannot be replaced.")

And for a staggering second time stands still.

It's her and...

And...

Fuck. Now he has to track down a pop-star?

Kadar supposes he should count his blessings that he kind of found her and pulls out his phone to stalk her online. He's waited too long to care about pub rules regarding phones during quizzes.

And there she is.

Golden haired, blue eyed, and as perfect as ever. He pauses a moment to collect himself before his body reacts in the embarrassing manner he has come to associate with her.

He knows that if she were to ever find out about his habitual reaction to her the former Venusian Princess' laugh would not be one of twinkling bells and more like a full blown cackle. Kadar finds himself smiling at the thought.

As he's pulling up her current tour schedule he takes a moment to appreciate that she went through the effort of becoming famous, it is quite clever honestly, and makes it much easier to find her. He doubts it was for his benefit, but he is willing to take any advantage he can find.

After years of no luck but bad luck, he is suddenly granted a boon of fate in that Venus- Minako he supposes he should call her now- is currently in London.

Kadar knows he shouldn't ditch his coworkers, but he's not really that close to them and he has something much more important to do with the rest of his evening. So he hands off the quiz sheet, leaves money on the table, and catches a cab to one of her local haunts.

He has never really used social media, but right now it is proving very useful. Minako has an eye for landscape shots, which give away her location like a beacon. Her portraits, self and otherwise, are horrendous. Though it is impossible for her to look bad she has certainly done none of her friends any favors.

He makes a note to never let her photograph him.

Kadar doesn't know how long it will take him to find his way into the same venue as her, but fortune has aided him this far tonight. He finds he is willing to put in the legwork to finish the task he has set his mind to.

He effectively stalks her for two weeks, but never manages to see her in person. He watches every music video, every interview, and follows every single social media outlet she is on. It is no small feat. He is quite sure if anyone from work were to find out he would be fired or at least be strongly encouraged to attend counseling, because he can acknowledge that to an outsider he would appear obsessive.

But he knows her. He knows he face and her voice and her quirks. He knows when she is being sincere and when she is putting on a show. And while he is putting all of the puzzle pieces together he realizes that she too is searching.

Its in her lyrics, its in her performances. To him it is as clear as day that she too is alone and searching for her comrades.

When he finally finds her it is at an upscale members only club and he cannot bring himself to approach her. He is paralyzed with the thought that perhaps she will not forgive him and instead will replace him as she told him all those centuries ago.

Ultimately the choice i not his. (But when was it ever?)

As in all things that concerning Kunzite and Venus, he is a slave to her whim and when her small hand reached out from behind him to touch his arm Kadar knows it is her without a glance.

And when searching blue eyes capture his own he is lost under her spell.

(Again.)

* * *

As always I appreciate thoughts!

PA


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